


jane's not a car (any more)

by Amelia_Friend



Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid, Janes a Car - Team Starkid, Nightmare Time - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, But the baby is a 10 year old, Direct sequel to Jane's a Car, F/M, Pretty major Nightmare Time Spoilers, They're still not quite sure how this happened so quickly though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27201782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amelia_Friend/pseuds/Amelia_Friend
Summary: Sequel to Jane's a Car.Tom is not okay. Becky is not okay. Tim is not okay. Emma is not okay. Paul is ... Paul's doing pretty well actually.Full summary in notes due to spoilers.
Relationships: Becky Barnes/Tom Houston, Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins, Tom Houston/Jane Perkins
Comments: 11
Kudos: 52





	1. Day One

**Author's Note:**

> Jane thought is would be so easy to get her son back.  
> It wasn't.  
> She may know she's Jane, but all anyone else sees is Tom's new old girlfriend - the one he's only been dating a few months. The one he just tried to run over with a car. That one.
> 
> And why would Tim live with Miss Becky, when there's an actual living relative in town.
> 
> Emma and Paul were happy. Everything was great.  
> Now Tom's lost his mind in one way, and Becky's lost her mind in a different way.  
> Tim is just lost.

Grace had left when his dad arrived.

Or rather – Grace has left when his dad arrived for the first time.

She'd been there most of the day – his dad had been gone since before breakfast, and now it was dark, and she had other things to do.

He'd said he would be right in – they were going to go to a drive in this weekend, and he said he would be right in.

Dad looked so happy.

But Grace was gone now. And his dad had driven off again without saying anything more.

* * *

It's already night – a thin moon hanging in the sky – and Tim drags a chair closer to the big window overlooking the road outside their house.

He's not supposed to drag the chair (it'll leave scratches on the floor, and it'll damage the chair – he hears his dad say inside his mind). But he's also not supposed to be left home alone with no warning, so it balances out.

And this way he can see his dad's car as soon as it turns the road.

This way he'll see when his dad comes back.

He's been waiting _forever_ , and the car hasn't come back.

But there's a rather more pressing issue right now.

Food. The issue is food.

Grace hadn't made him dinner – that's his dad's job. His dad likes making dinner.

But his dad never came inside the house, and dinner never got made, and now he's so hungry he feels like he could faint.

(He's fine. He ate a large lunch and multiple snacks since then. But he's ten and ten year olds like to be dramatic where their stomachs are concerned)

Deciding he can leave the window long enough to make himself some food – he drags the chair all the way back into the kitchen. Remembering only when he gets there, that there are actually multiple chairs already in the kitchen, and he probably could have left this one by the window.

Oh well – all done now.

Dinner that evening consists of peanut butter, jelly and pickle sandwiches (two of them); a handful of the chocolates in the upper cupboard his dad thinks he doesn't know about; and cookie dough ice cream.

After a moment, he adds an apple to his plate as well. It's important to eat healthily.

Somehow he also managed to dirty four knives, two forks and three plates in the process – but hey. Ten year old.

Pulling the whole lot back to the window, he only drops the peanut butter onto the rug once, and he's able to lick most of the mess up – so that doesn't even count.

* * *

So he waits.

He waits while he finishes his food sitting by the window.

He waits.

He waits while he watches one movie from start to finish.

He waits while he watches a second movie too.

He waits until his bedtime is long behind him, and he waits til his eyes are dropping closed on the sofa, and he waits until it's closer to midnight than he's ever stayed up (excluding New Years Eve, because that doesn't count).

He waits until the night is pitch black and the shadows are long and the monsters are coming out to play.

He waits until he's scared to sleep in a house all alone, all by himself.

He waits until he can't.

* * *

The phone rings.

Once, twice, three times.

She considers letting it go to voicemail – she was practically asleep already, and so not in the mood to talk to him right now.

But maybe he needs something, and it's great being able to hold things over peoples head in the future.

She's not going to be happy about it though.

“What do you want Tom?” her voice is perhaps a bit more brusque than strictly necessary, but that's part of the fun for her. “It's almost midnight.”

There's silence for a second, and Emma almost thinks he phoned her accidentally when -

“Aunt Emma?” He sounds small and scared and younger than his ten years.

“Tim? Is something wrong?” She sitting up, getting out of bed before he says anything because Tim doesn't phone her at midnight if everything is dandy.

“Maybe? I don't know.” His voice sounds distant, as if he's not sure what's going but doesn't want to get anyone in trouble “Dad, um, Dad went out earlier and he hasn't come back and I'm scared to go to sleep on my own.”

Emma's face pinches – and Tom better have a damn good reason for this – but she tries not to let it show in her voice.

“I'm coming over right now. We'll be there as soon as we can.” She reaches over to shake Paul awake, currently lost in dreamworld on his side of the bed. “Just, uh, watch a movie until we get there.”

“If you want to,” he says – but there's a note of desperation in his voice that says he's very glad his Aunt is coming. “I'll see you soon.”

“I can stay on the line with you if you - ” the phone goes dead.

Turning on the main light, Paul is drawn back into involuntary consciousness and deals with it by trying to swat some imaginary creature from the air just in front of his face.

“Em? It's the middle of the night – turn the light off.” He rolls over, trying to fall asleep again.

“Tim phoned – Tom's disappeared, and he's alone. We're going. Now.”

There's no arguing with that (his brain tries but doesn't come up with anything better than _but I was sleeping_ \- and that's not a great argument).

He slips on a shirt and shoes, grabbing his phone and nothing else.

Emma drives. (It is Emma's car, to be fair)

This was a good idea because he's already half-drifted off again in the twenty minutes it takes them to get to the Houston household.

Ringing the doorbell – Emma half expects Tom to greet them at the door, that this was all some elaborate prank (but that's not really Tim's style. She knows that)

A light turns on in the hallway, a key half turns in the lock before whoever is on the other side comes to a sudden realisation.

“Aunt Emma?” the voice calls from behind the door. “Is that you?”

“Yeah Tim, it's me. And Uncle Paul.”

The door finishes unlocking, and Tim's arms are around her waist before the door is even fully opened.

He looks okay. His eyes are exhausted, and he's got peanut butter in the corner of his mouth, and ice cream on the tip of his nose – but he looks okay.

It takes less than ten minutes for him to fall asleep.

Emma didn't realise kids went to bed that easy – she literally just led him to his room, and he would have climbed into bed, jeans and t-shirt and all had she not pulled a pair of pyjamas out of a drawer and half-tossed them at him (they had ducks on them. They were very adorable).

He smiled sheepishly, changed quickly, and was asleep before she'd finished pulling the covers up to his shoulder.

Downstairs, Paul is picking up the remains of Tim's self-made dinner, and examining what is very clearly a peanut butter smudge in the centre of the rug. It's wet for some reason, and Paul hopes that reason is because Tim had tried to clean it away.

As she descends the stairs, Emma's anger grows.

How could Tom just do that?

Disappear without saying anything to Tim?

Disappear and not come back?

But even anger can only keep you awake for so long – once she stopped Paul from trying to clean Tom's entire home, he'd fallen asleep in minutes – legs dangling off the edge of the couch.

She joins him just after two am, angled towards the door where she'll be able to catch him when he gets home.

If he gets home.

* * *

Tom's not back by the time she wakes up in the morning, the early sun cutting through the window and waking her much earlier than she would have liked on a Sunday.

Paul's not there either – but he's much easier to find, cooking pancakes in the kitchen.

Tim still sleeps in his bedroom, and she creeps away from there – letting him sleep as long as he needs.

The anger has mostly faded by this point, replaced by a worry that doesn't want to let go.

At this point, the best case scenario is he got so drunk he slept in his car somewhere. But that's not like Tom. Sure he'd go out drinking every so often – but not spur of the moment, and definitely not leaving Tim home alone.

He'd call Grace, or Emma herself – and there'd be a plan.

Emma may not … always like Tom as a person – but he loves his son, he adores his son above everything else left in the world. That much is very clear.

And for him to just disappear like this, disappear on Tim, is not exactly in his character.

She phones the Birdhouse. There's only one person working there this early in the morning, so it takes a few minutes to get through.

All she wants to know is what time Tom left the night before.

All she's told is that Tom was never there.

And Tom is a pretty regular visitor – they would definitely have seen him if he had been there.

There's only two hospitals in Hatchetfield, and that's her next phone call.

The first won't confirm or deny whether Tom was there or whether he had ever been there and yeah – she gets it – patient privacy. But that's going a bit far right? Not to tell if he had ever been there.

The second also won't tell her whether Tom was a patient. That's just annoying now.

Her fourth phone call of the morning is to the police. This counts as a missing persons, right?

Except not really.

Because she gets as far as saying she wants to report her brother-in-law missing. Tom Houston. When there's a noise on the other end of the line – an “oh” or a “uh”, and Emma finds herself being transferred to another officer.

Well there's good news and bad news.

The good news is that Tom isn't missing. She now knows exactly where that is.

The bad news is that “exactly where he is” is … a holding cell.

Somehow the idiot had managed to get himself arrested the night before, and either hadn't used his one phone, or used it for something other than making sure his ten year old son was okay.

The … medium news? They won't tell her why he was arrested.

So maybe he was trespassing somewhere he wasn't supposed to.

And maybe he's an axe murderer now.

Could go either way.

Tim wakes up just in time for breakfast – having been woken up by his stomach, and led down the stairs by his nose.

There's a split second turning into the kitchen that he looks so excited – but the excitement splits into apathy when he realises the two people cooking him breakfast are not the two (or the one in particular) that he wanted to see.

Breakfast is awkward.

That's the polite way to put it.

Tim is trying to shrink back into himself – head snapping to look at the door with every little noise.

Paul is doing an admirable job of trying to keep a conversation going over pancakes.

And Emma is still figuring out how to explain to the kid that his dad isn't going to walk through the door because he … kinda got himself arrested?

In the end, she sticks with her favourite method.

Not telling him at all.

Her and Paul might be stuck in the clothes they had thrown on at midnight, but Emma runs a comb stolen from the bathroom (probably Becky's, or at least, used by Becky, judging by the red strands of hair through the prongs)

Emma picks out Tim's clothes, specifically picking out ones that make him look “adorable”.

Because who knows – maybe that'll help at the station if he looks like a little angel?

* * *

They didn't tell Tim they were going to his dad.

They didn't tell him anything.

They just turned up at the police station and he figured it out for himself.

At least they tell them what happened – now that they turned up at the station and are quite clearly refusing to leave until _someone_ tells them _something_.

The something is not good.

Tom had nearly run over a girl at the beach yesterday – which is bad enough, but it gets worse.

He'd run over Becky.

And not by accident.

No – he had very clearly targetted her, followed her, and hit her with his car as fast as he could considering she had run among the trees.

“Miss Barnes is going to be okay,” the officer reassures them – “she's still in the hospital, but her condition is not considered life-threatening.”

Paul is staring in disbelief. Emma has turned white. And Tim is trembling and looks a smidge to close to throwing up for Emma's comfort.

“Did Mr Houston know Miss Barnes before this incident?” he asks, and it's a reasonable question that Emma tries to put words to when Tim beat her to it.

“They were intimate together.” He offers. This he knows at least.

The officer … doesn't quite know what to say to that.

“They'd been dating for a few months,” Emma offers up, a moment too late, now her mouth was working again.

“Are you sure it was Tom?” She asks in the next second. “That he was definitely driving?”

There's no way Tom was capable of something like this.

“Dad wouldn't hurt Miss Becky. He really likes her.” Tim tries to add. “He hasn't been this happy since Mom died.” His voice trails off to the end of the sentence. The reminder that his mom is never coming back is never great.

“Your mother was,” he looks down at the paper. “Jane, correct? Did she pass in a car accident?”

“I fail to see how that's relevant.” Paul steps in, before Emma or Tim get a chance to.

The officer sighs. “You better come with me.”

And then he's leading the way.

There's a couple of people in the cells – drunks mostly, people who went too far the night before.

They hear Tom before they see him.

He's ranting – he's raving – the words almost overlapping each other with the speed at which he's speaking.

Jane's in the car. He says. Jane is the car. She's inside the car. She made me do it. Jane made me do it. Jane is the car. Jane made me do it.

And Tim takes a step closer to him, a step closer to his dad, but it's a step too far because in a second Tom has his hands wrapped tight around Tim's shoulders.

Stay away from the car. It's not safe. You need to stay away. You need to stay away. It's not safe. She's not safe. She wanted to kill Becky to get her body. Stay away. Stay away.

And Emma believes now, believes that Tom could actually do something like that.

Something happened last night – before he hit Becky or after – but something happened and it looks like his brain has fractured.

Tim is nearly in tears – both from the state of his father, and the tightness at which his shoulders are being gripped. Paul almost has to pry his fingers backwards, Emma tugging Tim backwards – out of reach of the … thing … that used to be his father.

* * *

If the drive to the station was quiet, the drive home was worse.

At least before there was hope it was a misunderstanding, at least maybe there was something to be done.

But it's worse than Emma or Paul could have pictured, and Tim feels nothing.

They get to the house.

Emma wants to be useful. She _needs_ to be useful. She doesn't know how to be useful right now.

So Paul and Tim watch a movie – some disney film or something, with bright colours and happy-go-lucky characters and Paul doesn't even mention the singing.

Emma takes the chance to drive back to her and Paul's place to grab some things. They're probably going to be staying a while, and a change of clothes and essentials are going to be, well … essential.

The rest of the day passes in a haze of TV (the quality of which steadily declines) and take out (twice in one day) and no one talking about Tom.

It's about four pm that Tim asks if they can phone the hospital to see if Miss Becky is okay – the closest he's come to mentioning the mornings event. But they wouldn't even tell them if Tom was in the hospital, and Emma is technically related to him – they're not going to tell them anything about Becky.

He sinks back into the couch

It's about seven pm that Tim remembers he has homework. Homework due the next morning.

Which yeah – not great, and maybe a bit stressful, and also possibly something he could have remembered perhaps more than an hour before he was supposed to be going to bed.

But it's the straw that breaks the camels back – and he's crying for the first time since this all began.

And it's not just crying – Emma can cope with tears – it's tears and screaming and hyperventilating, and he's insisting that he's just upset about the homework but he doesn't know what he's doing.

Emma tries to help, sitting at the kitchen table with him while they try to work through his math homework – but he still has tears in eyes which doesn't help with the reading, and Emma hasn't really done math since school – which was way too many years ago. And numbers are different now? She tries to show him how she remembers doing these sums at school but apparently that's _wrong_ and they do it _this way_ now, Aunt Emma.

And it's only getting him more stressed, and she's getting stressed over it too (and it's 4th grade mathematics. No one should be getting this stressed over 4th grade mathematics).

But Paul puts his hand on her shoulder and they swap places, and he actually knows what he's doing (which – yeah, right. His whole job is numbers. That makes sense).

Emma takes over the job of making the hot chocolate (the nice kind with milk and whipped cream and marshmallow, none of that pretend cocoa made with water).

But the homework gets done (more thanks to Paul than Emma), and the chocolate gets drunk, and it's not even that late past his bedtime that the exhausted boy finally goes to sleep.

* * *

“Fucking hell,” Emma mutters, only half under her breath, as she collapses onto the couch.

“Fucking hell,” Paul agrees, handing her a glass of something slightly stronger than the hot chocolate.


	2. Day Two and Three

Getting a child ready for school is an … interesting experience.

Most people get something wrong at least a couple of times, but at least for most of them, those experiences are over by Kindergarten.

Very few people have their first experience of getting a child ready for school be a ten year old.

At least the ten year old kind of knows what's going on.

Emphasis on the “kinda”.

“I need a lunch Uncle Paul.”

“A lunch? Don't they give you food?”

“... No?”

“I need my homework Aunt Emma.”

“Isn't it in your bag already?”

“...No?”

“Where's my bag Uncle Paul?”

“Isn't it by the door?”

“...No?”

“Do you know how to get to your school?”

“... No?”

And then Paul gets to drive off and go to _work._ The traitor.

It's fine. Google knows how to get there.

And hey, she only goes the wrong direction twice. Tim only noticed once, which is definitely a win. She's taking it as a win anyway.

* * *

She's only picked him up from school once before – and had been last year as well, so the direction she started to walk is completely wrong.

But yeah, she doesn't actually know who Tim's teacher is. Or where his classroom is.

Tim shows her, in the eye-rolling fashion of _sure Aunt Emma_ that is far too teenage-like for her liking. But he sticks close – closer than he usually walks. If there weren't already other students in the hall, she's pretty sure he would have held her hand too. But he's ten now – and so grown up – and that would be actual, literal social suicide.

So he doesn't. He just … walks closer than usual. She pretends not to notice.

Tim's teacher is … She's perky. Her name is Miss Winters, and she's young. (Everyone seems young these days. That's a sign you're getting old right?) Her hair is white blonde with just a single streak of purple, and she's wearing one of those brightly coloured and busily patterned dresses that every stereotypical elementary teacher wears.

And she's just _so excited_ to meet Tim's aunt.

So Emma hates her already. But Tim smiles when he sees her, and it's a real smile. So she must be a nice teacher at least. The decision of whether or not she's a good teacher is … not actually Emma's decision. She has no say there. Emma will try not to hate her. She makes no promises.

But while there may have been students in the halls, at least there weren't any yet in Tim's classroom. Which meant they (in this case – meaning Emma and Miss Winters, while Tim kinda just stood there, pretending nothing was happening) were able to have the highly awkward (yes) and totally planned out (nope) conversation about the events of the weekend.

Or more specifically – the events of Saturday night.

They leave out the whole “possibly attempted murder bit”. It's far more prettily wrapped up as “unavailable for a while” and “staying with me and my … uh … Paul.”

“They're..” Emma sends Tim a _look_ before he can say the word 'intimate'. Seriously. Why Paul? (Because he's a complete nerd. That's why)

“He's my uncle.” Tim says instead.

“He'll be picking Tim up after school today,” Emma tells her. “I'm working.”

“Wonderful,” she smiles, “Is he on the list already?”

“... List?”

Turns out, the word of a ten year isn't good enough to let said ten year old leave with an adult the teacher has never met before. Which is definitely a good thing.

There's a list. And it details the exact adults allowed to pick up every single child.

Currently on Tim's list:

Tom (unavailable for obvious reasons)

Emma herself (working. Or she would have picked him up)

And Grace (the … babysitter? Emma assumes she'll still be at school herself when Tim needs picking up, and it's probably slightly too late to be needing her for a school pick up. Besides – Emma doesn't even have her number. She'll have to remedy that soon.)

Point being – Paul is not on that list. And _apparently_ the only person allowed to add more people to the list is Tom himself.

Which is how Emma ended up twenty minutes into an argument with the sour-mannered receptionist.

She'd say he had the face of a mouse, but she's met some very nice mice in her time and would hate to sully them by association.

Because only Tom is allowed to add people to the list. But Tom is fucking crazy now. (Not that she actually used those words). And he's not going to be collecting Tim any time soon.

And if Paul isn't allowed to pick him up, the kid's going to be at school until 8pm because that's when her shift finishes, and no one else is going to be available to pick him up before then, and it's going to be her very firm recommendation that he be the one who sits with Tim for those almost five hours, because he's the one stopping an actual real life adult that the kid lives with (okay – admittedly they've lived together for about thirty hours. This guy doesn't have to know that) pick him up.

His eyes look like they'd rather be saying anything but when he finally tells Emma (eventually) that Paul will be able to pick up Tim this afternoon – he just needs to stop by the office first for them to get a copy of his driving licence.

(Seriously – why is this guy in a public facing position.)

Also, she's fairly sure he doesn't _have to_. She just had to show her license to the class teacher and that was fine.

But hey – it's close enough to what she needs that she can give up on arguing with the stone man at least.

It's fine. It's all good.

Her shift starts in ten minutes. She's going to be late because of him isn't she.

* * *

School is … well, school is school. Tim likes school. He usually likes school.

It's very ordered. Lesson one is followed by lesson two is followed by recess. Not that he feels like playing though. He doesn't really feel like doing anything. His friends try to get him to join in, but he just stares. Blank faced. They go off without him.

He doesn't feel like doing any work. Miss Winters doesn't mind. The other teachers seem to get a bit annoyed with him. He still doesn't feel like doing any work. He does get his homework handed in. That's good. That's important.

By the time lunch rolls around, he doesn't feel like eating either. He tears the food into smaller and smaller pieces, pushing it around to the extent that it _looks_ like he's eating. His friends don't notice. Miss Winters does.

The day passes in a blur – a moment merging into the next until he couldn't tell you a single thing that had happened that day. Do the events of the day matter that much? They're over in any rate.

He's kept back at the end of the class when the other students are released to their parents and babysitters. Tim thinks his teacher wants to have A Talk with him. But she doesn't. They have a talk. But it's about everything but the events of the weekend and his behaviour today. It's almost weirder. Both of them knowing this big giant thing. Neither of them speaking about it.

Uncle Paul turns up after a few minutes. He looks lost, and more relieved than usual when his eyes fall on Tim. He looks like he'd gone to the wrong classroom – more than once – before he'd actually found the correct one.

The school's not even that big.

Miss Winters had obviously known they were waiting for Paul – she checks his ID briefly, despite Tim obviously calling him Uncle Paul, and wanting to leave with him – and then they were free.

The second before he escapes – he's so nearly free – she tells them that he now has an appointment with the school counsellor on Wednesday. Usual time and place.

Tim has to hold back the groan. He'd only just stopped having to see the counsellor. This was not going to be fun. The man had a way of making Tim talk about things he really didn't want to talk about. Like yeah – he feels better eventually. But it still sucks first.

But the world still feels grey. So Tim just shrugs and leaves with his Uncle.

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

That was the end of that.

* * *

It may only been three thirty when Paul picks up Tim – but technically there's the small fact that he is supposed to be working until six o'clock. He hadn't taken a lunchbreak – working through it instead, so he could run and out pick Tim. It means they don't have to rush back, although now he knows what the pick up routine is like – if he needs to do it again (he's going to need to do it again) he'd probably be able to fit it into a standard break as opposed to the longer lunch break.

It does mean they have time to stop for a little pick-me-up first. There's only ever one choice for where they'd go.

Beanies it is.

Aunt Emma's working, and they can't stay anyway – but Uncle Paul gets a black coffee he ordered, and a sandwich he didn't but Emma gives him anyway. Tim gets a hot chocolate with all the trimmings, and a small cake that had been put aside for him earlier. He also gets a warning to listen to Paul, and to behave (like he ever does anything but). For a second, Tim thinks Emma is going to hug him, but then she just ruffles his hair and the pair go on their way.

CCRP is big. It glass and steel and one of the few buildings taller than three stories in their town. He's seen it before. A lot. He'd never been inside before. He's still not sure he's allowed to be inside. He sticks close to Paul. People look at him for a second, but then they move on. No one demands to know what he's doing, where he's going. No one demands anything of Paul either – which is good. He'd hate to cause trouble for Uncle Paul.

Turns out one day notice is not enough for Tim to get a place in the after school programme. He couldn't stay with Emma because she has to deal with actual customers and also her boss is a dick. Paul on the other hand, only has to deal with co-workers, and his boss rarely notices anything that isn't rubbed into his face, and sometimes even then. It's definitely not a long term solution – it shouldn't even be a medium term solution. But for the very short term – it works. Just until they figure out something more suitable.

The people at CCRP make it feel cosy. They make it feel small. He just wants to sit there and do some homework (or not do some homework and read a book instead as the case may be), but there's an almost steady stream of people. From the slowly tightening annoyance on Paul's face – this isn't the usual case.

Some of them, Paul likes – some of them he talks to and the annoyance melts away. Some of them manage to activate the annoyance in moments. One of them even offered him some cookies – like an underage grandma. With an oversized sweater, and a distant smile that almost seems sad for a moment, she acts like a grandma (or how he assumes a stereotypical grandma is – he doesn't actually have any grandparents any more).

But it's a lot. Another person stops by, and Paul nearly snaps at her (he really needs to finish this report and how's he supposed to work with so many people stopping by. It's a ten year. Not a lion from the zoo. You don't have to see him. Actually, preferably don't come near him at all.

But she's got a kind smile and big glasses, and an office with an actual door, and offers to keep Tim on her side of the door. The next hour passes so much quicker than the first. She has a kind smile but firm eyes when she needs to – and no one is barging in on her. Well except one guy, that Tim thinks that he thinks he is the boss. He's got a lot of hair. He looks directly at Tim. Stares into his soul for a moment. Then he's gone.

Then she's packing up her own stuff to go, and Tim takes that as a hint to pack his own belongings into his school bag – just in the nick of time, as Paul comes in. He's apologising. Paul apologises a lot – but it's no problem. She says. I barely even noticed he was there. She says. And that's true – mostly. There was that one incident where he managed to almost knock over an entire bookcase. She noticed him then. But no harm done. It was actually … fun.

Tim couldn't figure out why he felt good. Then he remembers all that he forgot.

An entire two hours and he forgot about his dad, and forgot about Miss Becky and forgot (to an extent) about Aunt Emma and Uncle Paul.

His mood greys again. When they arrive “home”, it's still just him and Paul – Emma not arriving home for almost two hours still. Paul's cooking, and Tim is watching something brightly coloured and blessedly mind-numbing on the tv.

By the time Emma gets home, the pair have both eaten, and Tim has showered and changed into his pyjamas. He's really just waiting to see Emma before he goes to bed. He won't say anything, but he just wants to make sure she really is coming home. He needs her to come home.

She does. There's time enough for a hug, a quick run down of the days events, and a check of his school bag to make sure there won't be another homework related meltdown in the morning (there won't). It's a whole show of normality and happiness and maybe Tom has just gone out for the night. Gone for a few days. (He's not.)

Then it's off to bed.

Not off to sleep though. They tell him to sleep, but the second he's left alone – the lamp finds itself turning back on, and the book comes out. He's not sure how long he reads – long enough that his eyes turn heavy, and the words blur, and he's asleep before he can close the book, he's asleep before he can turn out the light.

He's asleep before he can dream.

The floorboards creak, and he sits up – bolt straight.

It's just Aunt Emma.

She's turning the light off, picking his book up from where it fell on the floor – and there's a second, when the light hits her face just right, that he forgets it's his aunt, instead seeing his mother's features on her face.

He dreams of his mother's face on the wrong body that night. He's not sure if it counts as a nightmare or not. He doesn't talk about it. It's just a dream.

* * *

Tuesday follows Monday, in the way it's apt to do.

It follows Monday in it's routine as well.

It's slightly smoother. They're at least aware this time that they have to prepare Tim a lunch, so he gets something more thoughtfully put together than the sandwich and three other random things from the fridge that could technically go into a lunch (one of them was a chocolate bar – he was very happy with that one at least.)

The school bag is back hanging on its peg, the homework having been placed back inside as soon as it was completed so there's no frantic _'quick – turn the house upside to find it – we're not having another meltdown over this fu-- damn homework'_ that there had been the morning before.

The routine is starting to become … routine. (If you can call it routine after two days. Maybe it needs to be at least a week before it counts as routine?) Either way. Better than yesterday. So much better.

Except this time her shift ended at three – meaning she can get to Tim just in the nick of time for pick up, providing she doesn't do anything else first. Like showering. Or even changing.

And yeah, without the apron – her beanies “uniform” is literally just a white shirt and black shorts – but she stinks of coffee so bad, and she just wants to go home and shower and change and maybe have a short nap to forget the literal onslaught of idiocy she has to deal with everyday.

Tim wants to go to the mall.

They go to the mall.

They spend most the afternoon there – wandering the stores, mostly just browsing, although Emma is very tempted on a few occasions, and the pair return to the house full of slightly more sugar than before, with a brand new toy under Tim's arm.

They do their homework together. Emma's got college work to prepare. Tim's got one worksheet, then the rest of his homework is just … reading. Emma wishes her work was reading fiction.

It's just after six that Paul gets home, and starts cooking dinner again. It's … almost a routine? It feels … nice? It was obviously a very terrible series of events that led to this point, but this point still feels ...good?

There's two suitcases and a small pile of things in the corner of the living room that weren't there last week, and are clearly Paul and Emma's, but they can't live there forever. They can't sleep there forever either – they may have slept on the couch the past three nights but they're actual grown ups – and that's going to do something to their actual grown up backs that can't be fixed if they don't solve this soon.

If there was a guest room, this would be an easy fix – but the “guest room” currently has no bed, and is very definitely an office in the current set up. Tim sees his dad's bed sheets getting washed in the machine. He doesn't say anything. When he passes the room, there are sheets he doesn't recognise on the bed – maybe they brought them from their own house. Maybe the sheets are just that old. He doesn't say anything. He guesses it's okay. They'll just take them away again when dad comes back. It's not like they were going to be able to sleep on the couch forever.

He doesn't need the light on to fall asleep tonight.

He does have a dream that night though.

A dream that's not a dream.

The light turns on and Becky is there. In his room. Because that's a totally normal place for her to be.

She strokes the hair back from his forehead and she smiles. But it's not her smile. It's familiar, definitely. But he can't quite place it. It's wrong. It's someone else's smile on Becky's face.

She whispers something to him, but the words themselves flow over him as he focuses on the smile instead.

His eyes drift shut, the dream blending and melding into something new.

The morning rays filter through the window, and with them the last memories of the never-dream clear themselves from his mind.

The day begins anew.


End file.
